This Is Your Country Now Too

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This Is Your Country Now, Too: Vijay

Vijay

This Is Your Country Now, Too

BBC Radio 4 - This Is Your Country Now, Too, Vijay

Avin Shah's comedy celebrates his East African heritage.

Avin Shah's comedy celebrates the enterprise and grit of British Asian citizens forced to leave East Africa in the 1960s, in our series about child refugees arriving in the UK.

Avin Shah's comedy celebrates his East African heritage, for our series of seven dramas about child refugees arriving in the UK since 1939.

Today's story salutes the enterprise and grit of a generation of British Asian citizens, who were forced to remake their lives in the UK in the 1960s. 

Fifteen year-old Vijay was born in Kenya, but now the country has won its independence from the British Empire, a new programme of Africanisation means his parents are denied work, and his school has closed down.  

But when he arrives at Heathrow with his British passport, he's put on a plane back to Kenya.  

Then in Nairobi, Kenyan Immigration say he's not Kenyan either, and put him back on another plane.

So where does Vijay belong?  What can he say about who he is, that will get him off a plane and back to school?

Luckily, Vijay's new travelling companion, Mr Ramesh Ramji, is about to help him find the answers. 

With grateful thanks to Ramila Shah and Jatinder Verma.

Ramesh . . . . Tony Jayawardena
Vijay . . . . Sid Sagar
Mrs P . . . Chetna Pandya
Mr Singh . . . Amit Shah
Wendy . . . Safiyya Ingar
The Kenyan Official . . . Ivanno Jeremiah
The Tanzanian Official . . . Nahel Tzegai
The Coffee Seller . . . John Kamau
Young Ramesh . . . Nyla Levy
Mohammed . . . Avin Shah
Mr Filmore . . . Neil McCaul
Mr Henry . . . Clive Hayward
The Boy . . . JP Oppong
and thanks to our BBC Africa colleagues Wazir Khamsin, Mariam Omar and Zuhura Yunus.

Theme music by Jack Newton
Series idea by Nicolas Kent with Jack Bradley

Produced and directed by Jonquil Panting

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Drama

Seven stories seen through the eyes of child refugees as they leave home for the unknown.

Seven stories seen through the eyes of children. What it is to be a child refugee: the peril, the decision to flee and the obstacles facing them as they leave home for the unknown.

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